The Hotel Vendome, a 1917 hotel one block off Whiskey Row in Prescott, Arizona, is best known for Room 16. The room belonged to Abby Byr, a longtime resident who, the story goes, died there with her cat Noble beside her. Guests have reported the pair for decades: soft purring with no pet in sight, doors easing open, lights that flicker. The Vendome still operates as a hotel, Room 16 can be booked by number, and Freaky Foot Tours tells the story on its evening Prescott Ghost Tour.
A small hotel a block off Whiskey Row
The Hotel Vendome stands at 230 S. Cortez Street in downtown Prescott, one block off Whiskey Row. Built in 1917 during one of Prescott's boom periods, it has operated as a hotel for more than a century, long enough to become a nationally registered historic site and, in the silent-film era, a reputation as a stop for traveling celebrities.
It has never been a grand hotel, and that is the point. The Vendome is a small boutique property: a front porch, a front desk, a short hallway of rooms. In a hotel with hundreds of doors, an odd noise vanishes into the building. In a place this size, guests and staff compare notes, and for decades the notes have kept pointing at the same door. Room 16.
Who was Abby Byr
Abby Byr was a resident of the Vendome, not a passing guest. She lived at the hotel, and the story goes that her husband abandoned her in the 1920s and that she died in the hotel with her cat, Noble, beside her.
We say "the story goes" deliberately. The hotel is documented fact, Room 16 is documented fact, and Abby lived there. The circumstances of her final years, though, come down as oral history, told and retold for roughly a century. Abby was a real person, and the sad chapters of her life deserve care rather than theater, so we tell those parts plainly, keep the hedges visible, and let you weigh the rest yourself. The longer version of who she was, and why she never left the Vendome in life, is in our full telling of Abby and Noble, the ghost cat of the Hotel Vendome.
What guests report in Room 16
The cat usually comes first. Across decades of guest and staff accounts, the reports from Room 16 stay remarkably consistent:
- a ghostly cat curled near the room
- soft purring in a room with no pet present
- a light pressure settling at the foot of the bed
- lights that flicker and doors that ease open on their own
- footsteps and voices with no one in the hall
- small items relocating themselves
- now and then, the feeling of being gently tucked in
That consistency is the part worth noticing. Hauntings that grow in the telling tend to sprawl. The Vendome's reports are a small, stable set, repeated by different people across different years, all anchored to the same room.
A haunting guests describe as gentle
Prescott keeps a long roster of ghost stories, and many of them carry real weight. The Vendome's may be the gentlest haunting in town. Nothing reported in Room 16 reads as menacing. Purring, a settled weight at the foot of the bed, a tucked-in blanket: these are the calling cards of company, not of warning. Guests tend to leave talking about Abby warmly, the way you talk about a host. Noble, for his part, gets credited with keeping the room ever since, which by any honest count is a very long lease for a cat.
That tone is also why the story travels well beyond ghost-hunting circles. You do not need to believe anything in particular to find the picture affecting: a woman who kept her room and her cat through the hardest years of her life, remembered by a small hotel that still rents that room by number.
Questions people ask
Is the Hotel Vendome haunted?
By reputation, yes, and it is one of the most consistently reported sites in Prescott. Guests and staff have described the same small set of things in and around Room 16 for decades: purring with no cat present, doors easing open, flickering lights. We present all of it as reported lore, hedged where the record thins, and the Vendome's record is unusually steady.
Can you stay in Room 16 at the Hotel Vendome?
Yes. The Vendome operates as a working hotel and will book Room 16 by number if you ask when you reserve. The room has a following, so plan ahead.
Is the Abby Byr story true?
The hotel and Room 16 are documented, and Abby lived there. The circumstances of her final years, including the account of her husband leaving and of Noble at her side, come down as oral history told for about a century. That is why we frame those parts with "the story goes" and let you decide what to make of them.
Does a tour in Prescott visit the Hotel Vendome?
Yes, two of ours do. The evening Prescott Ghost Tour includes the Vendome among its downtown stops, and the Prescott History Tour ends its route at the hotel.
Where the story gets told
The Hotel Vendome is a stop on the Freaky Foot Tours evening Prescott Ghost Tour, which walks downtown Prescott's reported hauntings alongside the documented history that produced them. Guests mention the hotel by name in their reviews:
“Learned about the Hotel Vendome, tunnels, and other stories of Prescott's violent history.” (Paul V., TripAdvisor, September 2025)
The walk itself is part of the draw. Downtown Prescott after dark is compact, well lit, and built for exactly this kind of story:
“My wife and I did our walking tour of Prescott on a Friday night in November. It was a beautiful walk, filled with interesting and fun stories about Prescott and its haunted history.” (Mathew S., TripAdvisor, November 2025)
Prefer daylight and history without the hauntings? The Prescott History Tour finishes its route at the Hotel Vendome, so you end the tour standing on Abby's block either way.
Both routes draw on material originally researched by a Northern Arizona author whose archival work underpins our Prescott storytelling, and our Prescott tours carry more than 300 verified reviews across platforms as of July 2026. Booking is straightforward: full refund when canceled 24 or more hours before the tour, no refund inside 24 hours.
“Whether you’re into the paranormal or just love a good story under the night sky, this tour is a must.” (Megan M., TripAdvisor, October 2025)
The Vendome is one address on a crowded map. For the rest of the block, start with haunted Whiskey Row, one street over and deep in stories of its own.
